A/N: It's that time of year again, when Horatio plays on my mind. Not intended as slash, but I suppose if you squint hard enough.
Disclaimer: All characters mentioned herein belong entirely to C.S. Forester. I just borrowed them for a bit.
Horatio did not understand - he ought to have been happy. Maria was a very respectable woman. She was not unpleasant to look at, and she cared about him deeply. Why, then, could he not join the others - any of the others? - in rejoicing in his good fortune? Why did he feel nothing more than cold regret and a chill deep in his bones?
This, like so much else, Horatio reflected, belonged in that unfortunate category entitled, "What Would Have Been Different Had Archie Been Here." It was a rather large category, and although he tried to be careful about assigning the minutiae of his life to it, rather more fell beneath that heading than he was entirely comfortable with.
Life on the Hotspur itself might not have been much altered. Bush would still be his first lieutenant. Seniority on its own determined that, and Horatio had the greatest confidence in William. But Archie would have been second. Horatio's morning ascent to the quarterdeck would be marked with a flash from cheerful blue eyes and a merry "Captain Hornblower" that would never have failed to raise his spirits. And in the company of his two real friends, Horatio would have known himself to be the happiest of men.
What Archie would have said on this current circumstance, Horatio had no concrete conclusions. Sitting alone in his cabin on the Hotspur, carefully peering over his next set of orders, however, he could imagine a little of how it would have been, had Archie lived.
He would have joined in the cheerful huzzah's along with the men and Mr. Bush. While perhaps not as enthusiastic as Styles and Matthews, his happiness for his Captain would have been as undeniable. But then, later, when all the hubbub had died down and Horatio had excused himself to his cabin to, well, think things over, there would have been a soft knock on his door.
"Come in," Horatio would say, and in would walk Archie.
They would have exchanged a few brief pleasantries, their conversation slowly circling around to its inevitable subject. Eventually, the change would be signaled by Archie's, "Permission to speak freely, sir?" to which Horatio would instinctively reply, "Of course."
As to the next part, Horatio was in two minds as to how it would happen. If there were a convenient chair, Archie would settle himself into it and then drag it close to Horatio's desk, the legs scraping horribly against the wooden planking. If no chair was at hand, Archie would simply move aside the least important looking of Horatio's paperwork and seat himself on the desk instead.
Horatio would look up into that honest face, its usual cheer contained and somewhat dimmed by purpose. He would meet those blue eyes that somehow seemed to always see directly through any of his pretenses. At times, it was plain to Horatio that Archie knew him better than he knew himself. He knew all the dark secrets that William knew - including the occasional bouts of nausea before an engagement - as well as the ones that even Horatio had half-forgotten.
"It is well known," he would begin, his tone filled with the patience of ages, "at least to those who read the naval chronicles, that no chains can hold Captain Horatio Hornblower for long. The Spaniards, the French, the rebel slaves of Santo Domingo - all have sought to imprison him and prevent him from fulfilling his duty to God, England, and St. George. And yet, despite all their efforts, none of them has ever proved successful – perhaps because they find him to be excessively troublesome."
Now he would lean forward, one arm casually resting upon his knee, supporting his weight with his elbow, and those blue eyes would pierce Horatio with an all-seeing directness that could only have been learned firsthand from Admiral Pellew himself.
"Tell me," he would continue, giving Horatio the room to explain himself, "how is it then, my dear idiot, that the great Captain Hornblower has been captured at last, trapped by a woman such as Maria Mason?"
Bit by bit, with a nearly bottomless patience and with an infinite supply of jests, he would draw out the truth of the matter. Whatever that truth was. And slowly, Horatio would grow to understand what mad impulse had driven him to propose to Maria then and why his conscience was wracked about it now.
When Horatio understood himself, when he could at last breathe and relax the knots paralyzing his stomach, Archie would alight from his perch on chair or desk with a final jest that could not fail to provoke his friend into a laugh. He would depart as easily as he had come, bound for the sunlit deck and the first dog watch, leaving behind a captain at peace enough with himself to properly focus on the latest orders from the admiralty.
So it would have been, had Archie lived. Had Archie lived, Horatio might never have found himself in such a situation, engaged to a woman he hardly knew and, worse, who hardly knew him.
As it was, Horatio was left to sort out his own knots and struggle against the incessant questionings of his conscience. Why had he proposed to Maria Mason? What mad spirit had taken hold of him? Horatio pondered, and he debated, and at one point he almost stewed, but in the end, he could not uncover a satisfactory answer. He had done this, and he would have to make the best of it.
He stared down at the orders in front of him, attempting to think only of the instructions they contained. He reviewed plans and maps until his eyes nearly blurred. All the while, deep in the back of his mind, flickered the desperate, oft-repeated wish, that perhaps for just this one time, the rules of God and mortality and medicine would bend, just long enough for Archie to once again knock at his door.